Narrow Rear End

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jimrat

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Hello Wondering If Anybody Has A Home Made Jig To Cut And Reweld Rearend Housings? I Would Like To Do My Own This One Time And Need An Idea How To Set It Ture. I Know To Make Sure Of Square Cuts And Grind In A Downard Angle To Fill Gap With Weld Afterwards But Have Not Figured Out How To Ture It Before Welding It And It Not Costing Me Much. I Will Send Axles Out Anybody Know A Good Place To Deal With? Running A 8.8 Ford Axle. Thanks
 
You need to purchase a jig. Mark Williams has a jig kit for about $425 you can buy. Unless you have a lathe it is easier to purchase the kit.

The jig has 5 parts to it; 2 bushings that fit tight in the housing ends, 2 bushings that bolt into the carrier bearing caps and a large heavy wall tube that slides thru the bushings. This puts the ends square and in line with the center of the carrier.

If you are going to make your own setup use aluminum because these parts need to fit tight and light surface rust will make it difficult to slide the jig together.
 
I See I Wonder What It May Cost To Pay For This Service? I Will Only Do This Once And It May Be Smarter To Pay Some One.
 
jrat, what was the donor for the 8.8 axle? If it came from a later model Explorer, you should be able to use 2 passenger side axles, then just have the housing cut about 1.5" on the driver's side. Then slide the extra passenger's side axle into the driver's side, and Ta-da!! Of course it's rarely that simple. :)
 
Yeah but good idea, only I am looking for 2 inchs a side. Thanks anyway I like the way you think. I found a shop in town that may be able to fix me up thanks!
 
jrat, check that rearend to see how much the center section is offset. If you take 2" off per side, and the center section is way offset like a lot of the Fords are, then you are going to run into alignment problems with your tranny / differential angles. You may have to remove the 2" from the passenger side to get where you want with your final fit, but if the center section is way offset to the passenger side you may have to remove as much as 3.5" on the drivers side to get the correct center section offset. Was that clear as mud? :)
 
Jrat, just wondering how your rearend swap went. I did the same thing. Are you running it yet?
 
I just narrowed a mark williams 9 in. at work today accually. Lathe is definatly the way to go. And its not too hard to make a jig with a steel table, a few pieces of angle iron, and a mig welder. Just takes a lot of measuring, squaring and a lot of math. But like my boss says, "Measure twice, cut once."
 
70 Dart, I got the rear out of a 91 explorer, picked up an extra passenger side axle at the same place. Had the drivers side tube shortened 3", now the extra passenger side axle will fit. gives 56 1/2" from brake drum to drum. Had the same guy weld on the perches at 43". I can get some pics of the completed rear if your interested. I had no need to get any custom or after market axles with this mod. You can get a rear with disc or drum, at the time the junkyard only had a drum rear.
 
so you're runnin' this set-up now?
you are runnin' 2 passanger side axles? and it worked?didi you need special rims?....will you give me a list or step by step of what ya did? and rough estimate..this might save me over $200 on custom axles if i know it works
 
Thanks busted knuckles that may be the route I end up taking, as a decent priced 8 3/4 around here if you can find it or someone who will part with it are as scarce as hens teeth!
 
busted knuckles said:
Jrat, just wondering how your rearend swap went. I did the same thing. Are you running it yet?
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no just got it back from mosher engineering and installing it now. I am in a long term project with lots of time consuming areas, it takes forever to make a little progress at only a couple of hours here and there. How did your swap go so far did you use rear disc brakes also?
 
70dart said:
So how did you do it, do you have pics?
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no pics yet just got it back from machine shop cut 4 inchs and new axles for 350.00. I wanted low gears and most 8 3/4 have higher gears so its still cheaper to do all this plus rear disc!! I will have pics in my garage soon under jrat/ 68 dart convertable/hemi. Little work and it can be worth it.
 
No disc for me. I wish. The wrecking yard only had the drum rear. I am smoothing wrinkles out of this project. I had the welder weld the perches on at the wrong angle. So I need to move them. On the bright side, I got my american racing wheels last week. Im hoping in the next week, it will be done.
 
busted knuckles said:
... Had the drivers side tube shortened 3", now the extra passenger side axle will fit. gives 56 1/2" from brake drum to drum. Had the same guy weld on the perches at 43". ....
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Busted Knuckles,
A buddy has a 8.8 out of a late 90's Explorer (disc, limited slip, 3.73) that seems like it would work well but I'm trying to figure out your math. If I just cut the drivers side and use a spare pax side axle doesn't that center the pinion? My 7.25 has the pinion offset approx 2" towards the pax side which is where it needs to be to line up with the tranny. Where does your pinion line up now?

BirdRockBomb
'64 Barracuda
 
You need to make a set of these and get a 48" long, 1.25" dia, turned, ground and polished steel bar

pucks-1.jpg


Pucks from Left to right: Dana 60 carrier, 8.75 carrier, housing end

That's really all you need. The $425 kits have some nice features that really aren't required.
 
Thanks crackedback. Do you have the dimensions for the 8.75 pieces? I have access to a lathe, although I'm not sure where I would get the aluminum to start out with.
 
I just made my own for my 9" with scrap metal and work and turned it down on a lathe. I believe I used 1 3/4" shaft and huge aluminum shaft and turned it down. I had to remove an extra 2.5" from one side of my housing because it came from a 76 bronco and the housing was offset. I was able to use the rear disc brakes from an Exploder with some small modifications to the backing plates. The brake line actually bolted up to the darts line with no issues and will be able to tie it into the darts parking brake. The rear is now in the car and now I am on to other things before the spring.

4link.jpg


4link1.jpg


mock up rear1.jpg


Rear discs.jpg
 
crackedback said:
John, Nice work!
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Thanks, It has been a ton of work, but it is getting there. It is on the wheels now and I think the stance looks awesome. I am just finishing up the mini tubs and working on the trunk pan getting it ready for the cell and running new fuel lines.
 
Badart said:
Thanks, It has been a ton of work, but it is getting there. It is on the wheels now and I think the stance looks awesome. I am just finishing up the mini tubs and working on the trunk pan getting it ready for the cell and running new fuel lines.
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Cool,

You guys that have access to lathes... really piss me off... :-D

I'd probably never leave the garage if I had one. So many things to make and no equipment.

I had a guy spin those out for me. He used some scrap from a project for the pucks. Cost about $75 for pucks and the bar was $50 delivered. Beats the heck out of a $425 kit.
 
crackedback said:
Cool,

You guys that have access to lathes... really piss me off... :-D

I'd probably never leave the garage if I had one. So many things to make and no equipment.

I had a guy spin those out for me. He used some scrap from a project for the pucks. Cost about $75 for pucks and the bar was $50 delivered. Beats the heck out of a $425 kit.
Click to expand...

We have a Fabrication shop and a Machine shop with a bridgeport and a lathe and a few other old school machines. When I am caught up with my maintance stuff I like to tinker. My boss is cool with it and into cars so it helps. BTW I am getting paid for it and it beats sitting around waiting for a machine to break. If I could I would just pull my car in here. LOL
 
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